Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It is published by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York, P.O. Box 20587, Tompkins Square Station, New York, NY 10009, weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.

*1. Chile: Pinochet Was Planning New Coup in 1988
Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) had plans to foment violence and declare a state of emergency if he lost an Oct. 5, 1988 plebiscite on his regime, according to declassified US documents that the DC-based research group National Security Archive posted on its website on Feb. 22. The plebiscite, mandated by Pinochet’s own 1980 Constitution, gave Chileans a choice between voting “yes” to have the general remain president for eight more years or voting “no” to end the dictatorship and hold a presidential election in 1989. The “no” option won with 54.7% of the vote to 43% for “yes”; some 98% of eligible voters participated.

According to the declassified documents, as early as May 1988 the military became concerned about a possible loss and decided that the “no” couldn’t be allowed to win. On Sept. 30 then-US ambassador Harry Barnes warned the administration of US president Ronald Reagan about the “imminent possibility of government-staged coup.” US intelligence had provided “a clear sense of Pinochet’s determination to use violence on whatever scale is necessary to retain power,” Barnes said. The US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reported that Pinochet supporters “are said to have contingency plans to derail the plebiscite by encouraging and staging acts of violence. They hope that such violence will elicit further reprisals by the radical opposition and begin a cycle of rioting and disorder.” The military would then step in, and “the elections would be suspended, declared invalid, and postponed indefinitely.”

Although the US government had supported the bloody 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power, the Reagan administration felt that Pinochet was a polarizing figure whose presence was strengthening the Chilean left and weakening the center. The National Democratic Institute (NDI) provided some $1.6 million for voter registration and other work for the plebiscite, while Ambassador Barnes clearly supported the “no” vote, leading Pinochet to issue denunciations of “Yanqui imperialism.” US military and intelligence officials warned their Chilean counterparts not to support plans for a coup.

At 1 am on Oct. 6, after the voting results were clear, the military junta held a meeting at which Pinochet—“nearly apoplectic,” according to a participant—suggested having the military seize control of Santiago. The other military rulers refused to back Pinochet, who had to concede the loss and allow an election.

The National Security Archive posting of the documents was timed to coincide with the presentation of the Oscar awards by the US film industry on Feb. 24. “NO,” a fictionalization of the 1988 campaign, was one of the movies nominated for the best foreign film award. Noting that “[t]he complexity of the story is not depicted on screen,” the Archive said it wanted to use the recognition of the film to “draw attention to the fuller story.” (National Security Archive 2/22/13; La Jornada (Mexico) 2/24/13)

In other news, union leader Juan Pablo Jiménez Garrido was shot dead with a single bullet to the head the afternoon of Feb. 21 inside the offices of Ingeniería Eléctrica Azeta, an electrical contracting firm which provides services to the private electric company Compañía Chilena de Electricidad (CHILECTRA). Jiménez, the president of the Azeta Workers Federation, was last seen sitting on a bench near an office while he reviewed union business. Tensions had been growing between the union and the company over a contract and alleged labor workplace violations. Hundreds of people attended Jiménez’s funeral on Feb. 23, chanting: “Justice, truth, no to impunity.” Bárbara Figueroa, president of the Unified Workers Confederation (CUT), the main Chilean labor federation, stressed the “tremendous seriousness” of the killing and the need for a thorough investigation. (El Ciudadano (Chile) 2/22/13; La Nación (Chile) 2/23/13)

*2. Honduras: US-Trained Unit Implicated in Aguán AbusesRights Action, a human rights organization based in Toronto and Washington, DC, released a report on Feb. 20 documenting killings and other abuses carried out since late 2009 during land disputes between campesinos and major landowners in the Lower Aguán Valley in northern Honduras. The 64-page report, “Human Rights Violations by US-backed Honduran Special Forces Unit,” finds that soldiers from the Honduran military’s 15th Battalion are directly implicated in at least 34 abuses, including “kidnappings, killings, threats, torture and abuse of authority,” according to the report’s author, Annie Bird.

Since 2008 or earlier, Bird says, the battalion has “received assistance and training from the Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH) of the United States Armed Forces.” Honduran media have reported that Spanish and Israeli special forces have also trained the soldiers; local informants say Colombian and Panamanian trainers have been participating as well.

Based on dozens of interviews and on reports from the Honduran media and human rights groups, Bird compiled a list of at least 88 campesinos killed since January 2010, including two killed on Feb. 16, right before the report’s release [see Update #1164]. An additional five people were apparently killed because they were mistaken for campesinos. According to the report, “at least 77” of the campesino deaths “clearly have the characteristics of death squad killings, contradicting reports from the Honduran government human rights commission CONADEH [the National Human Rights Commission] and US State Department that characterize the killings as the result of ‘confrontations.’” Bird also cites as many as 13 killings of security guards employed by the big landowners, noting that many of the guards are themselves campesinos; there are suspicions that some of these killings were carried out by other security forces.

In announcing the report, Rights Action wrote that the “vast majority of the killings and other violations that have been perpetrated in Bajo Aguán since 2010 have not been investigated, generating a level of impunity that suggests complicity between state and local authorities and those responsible for the killings and other abuses.” The group asked for readers to “send copies of this information, and your own letters, to your Canadian and American politicians (MPs, Congress members and senators) and to your own media.” (Rights Action 2/20/13)

*3. Mexico: Juárez Rights Activist Seeks Asylum in US
Mexican human rights activist Karla Castañeda Alvarado applied for political asylum in the US on Feb. 13 after secretly leaving her home in Ciudad Juárez in the northern state of Chihuahua with four of her children. US authorities have granted her six months to provide documentation to justify her application. The Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Disappeared Young Women, in which Castañeda was active, said it was better for her to seek asylum, noting the example of activist Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who was shot dead by an unidentified man on Dec. 16, 2010, as she was protesting in front of the main government office in the state capital, also named Chihuahua [see Update #1061].

Castañeda started her political activity after her daughter Cinthia Jacobeth, then 13 years old, disappeared in Juárez on Oct. 24, 2008. This January Castañeda was part of a 400-km walk by members of the Committee of Mothers to the state capital to present a petition to Gov. César Duarte Jáquez. The governor left for the southeastern state of Chiapas--to participate in the launching of a “National Crusade Against Hunger”--before the activists arrived. Duarte finally met with the committee in Juárez on Feb. 2 and agreed to some of their proposals for fighting the disappearances. However, after the meeting Castañeda was subjected to harassment by the authorities. Municipal police agents raided her home on Feb. 4; unidentified men attempted to enter her yard at about 3 am on Feb. 6; and state police and agents from the prosecutors’ office went to her house on Feb. 9 and told her mother-in-law that Castañeda was getting “too deep” in the search for her daughter.

Human rights organizations say some 200 women, most of them young, have disappeared in Juárez since 1993, in addition to several hundred women known or presumed to have been murdered. The number of disappeared may be higher, since some families probably don’t report the disappearances for fear of reprisals. (La Jornada (Mexico) 2/18/13; Desinformemonos (Mexico) 2/18/13)

*4. Dominican Republic: Protesters Demand Review of Barrick Contract
Dozens of Dominican activists demonstrated outside the Supreme Court building in Santo Domingo on Feb. 18 to protest a contract the government signed with the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation for the Pueblo Viejo gold mine in Cotuí in the central province of Sánchez Ramírez. The group called for the court to declare the agreement unconstitutional. Critics say the Dominican Republic will only receive a fraction of the proceeds from the mine while the country will be left with the job of repairing the environmental damage [see Update #1163]. Opposition deputy Juan Hubieres, who was leading the protest, charged that the government of former president Leonel Fernández (1996-2000, 2004-2012) received US$37.5 million in 2007 to repair the damage caused by the previous management of the mine, the state enterprise Rosario Dominicana, and eventually collected a total of US$75 million. Fernández “will have to explain to the country in what way this has been employed,” Hubieres said.

Other demonstrators protested a plan by current president Danilo Medina to recognize titles to properties at the Bahía de las Aguilas beach and in other parts of the Jaragua ecological reserve, located in the southwestern province of Pedernales. The government says private use of the properties for tourism will help develop the impoverished province, but opponents insist that the titles were obtained fraudulently in 1995 and 1996 from then-director of the Dominican Agrarian Institute Jaime Rodríguez, who was arrested but was never tried. The protesters cut up a cake in the shape of the Dominican Republic to dramatize the way authorities are dividing up the national territory, they said. (El Diario-La Prensa (New York) 2/19/13 from correspondent; El Día (Santo Domingo) 2/20/13)

*5. Haiti: Duvalier and UN Blow Off Victims’ Claims--Again
On Feb. 21 former Haitian “president for life” Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier (1971-1986) once again defied an order to appear before an appeals court in Port-au-Prince that is considering whether he can be criminally charged for human rights violations committed during his regime. Duvalier had refused to appear in the court twice before, on Jan. 31 and Feb. 7 [see Update #1163]. Duvalier’s defense attorney, Reynold Georges, said the former dictator’s presence was unnecessary because he had filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. Georges himself defied the court by arriving 90 minutes late. “I don’t lose,” Georges announced. “I’m Haiti’s Johnnie Cochran.” The three-judge appeals panel responded by ordering the public prosecutor to have Duvalier escorted to the court by Feb. 28.

Some human rights advocates considered the judges’ order a victory. Reed Brody, a legal consultant with Human Rights Watch (HRW), called it “a chink in [Duvalier’s] armor of impunity.” “This isn’t a victory yet, but it’s been a long struggle,” Collective Against Impunity coordinator Danièle Magloire said on Feb. 22. Still, “many doubt the government [of President Michel Martelly] wants to put Duvalier on trial,” Miami Herald correspondent Jacqueline Charles wrote. “Some of the top government posts are held by supporters of the regime, with the newly appointed minister of interior [David Bazile] also being the head of Duvalier’s political party.” (MH 2/21/13 from correspondent; Associated Press 2/21/13 via CTV News (Canada) 2/21/13; AlterPresse (Haiti) 2/22/13)

On the same day, Feb. 21, United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced through a spokesperson that the organization has no legal liability for a cholera epidemic caused in October 2010 by poor sanitation at a United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) military base in the Central Plateau. The UN's position is based on section 29 of the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN. The Feb. 21 announcement was in response to a petition filed in November 2011 by the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and its Haitian affiliate, the Bureau of International Lawyers (BAI), for compensation on behalf of 5,000 victims of the epidemic [see Update #1105]. IJDH staff attorney Nicole Philips called the UN decision “all very political” and noted that “[I]f this had been a corporation, and if it had been an environmental spill, there would have been liability.” “The United Nations can’t have humanity and impunity at the same time,” BAI managing attorney Mario Joseph said.

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence on the origin of the epidemic, Ban has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the UN’s responsibility. According to the Haitian Ministry of Public Health, as of the end of January 7,824 people had died of the disease and 350,000 had been hospitalized. UN spokespeople stressed that the organization has spent some $118 million to fight the epidemic. (AlterPresse 2/21/13; The Guardian (UK) 2/21/13 from correspondents) The UN’s budget for the MINUSTAH troops and police agents this fiscal year, July 2012 through June 2013, is currently set at $648.394 million. (MINUSTAH Facts and Figures, UN website accessed 2/25/13)

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*1. Chile: 20 Arrested at Mapuche Prisoner’s Hearing
Chilean authorities suspended a hearing for indigenous Mapuche prisoner Fernando Millacheo Marín on Feb. 12 after some 20 of Millacheo’s supporters, including women and children, were detained outside the courthouse in Collipulli in the southern Araucanía region’s Malleco province. Police agents attacked the crowd of about 50 protesters with a water cannon, according to Mapuche sources, and beat several women and handcuffed an 11-year-old. The detainees were charged with public disorder, and Millacheo’s hearing was postponed to Feb. 15. The authorities said the protesters caused the clash by hurling rocks at police agents, but Mapuche activists countered that the detentions were part of a wave of repression that included the arrest of Jaime Huenchullan, werken (spokesperson) for the Temucuicui autonomous community, along with an unnamed French national, while they were on their way to the hearing.

As of Feb. 16 Millacheo had been on hunger strike for 55 days and reportedly had lost 15 kg (33 lb). He is awaiting trial on charges of robbery, arson and attempted murder in incidents that occurred at the Chiguaigüe estate on June 16, 2012. Millacheo says he is innocent, and Mapuche activists consider him a political prisoner. This is his second hunger strike since his imprisonment: he participated in a hunger strike with four other Mapuche prisoners in the prison in Temuco in October [see Update #1147]. On Feb. 16 Millacheo demanded a new doctor, charging that he had been subjected to “racist treatment” by Roberto Baos Somarriba, a physician at the El Manzano prison in Concepción. (BBC News 2/12/13; Kaos en la Red 2/14/13; Diarioladiscusión.cl (Chile) 2/17/13)

Another Mapuche prisoner, Héctor Llaitul Carillanca, agreed to end a 76-day hunger strike on Jan. 28 after meeting for several hours with representatives of national and international organizations supporting Mapuche rights; the group included Llaitul’s mother, Florinda Carillanca, and his wife, Pamela Pezoa. Llaitul heads the Arauco Malleco Coordinating Committee (CAM), a militant organization pressing for restitution of traditional Mapuche lands. Visitors had said on Jan. 26 that the activist was near death [see Update #1161]. Another CAM hunger striker, Ramón Llanquileo Pilquimán, ended his fast on Jan. 31, also after 76 days. Agreeing to at least one of Llanquileo’s demands, prison authorities restored his access to weekend leaves starting on Feb. 8. (ORBE (Chile) 1/28/13 via Terra (Chile); Radio Universidad de Chile 2/7/13)

*2. Honduras: Murdered Lawyer's Brother Killed in Aguán
Unidentified assailants shot Honduran campesino José Trejo Cabrera on the evening of Feb. 16 as he was riding on his motorbike to his home in the San Isidro section of Tocoa in the northern department of Colón. Trejo was taken to a local hospital, where he died a few minutes later. The victim’s brother, Antonio Trejo Cabrera, an attorney who defended campesino activists and fiercely opposed plans for autonomous “model cities” in Honduras, was gunned down the evening of Sept. 22, 2012, in Tegucigalpa near the Toncontín International Airport [see Update #1145]. Both brothers were members of the Authentic Claimant Movement of Aguán Campesinos (MARCA), one of several campesino collectives seeking the return of land in the Lower Aguán Valley in northern Honduras that they say big landowners bought illegally.

The conservative Tegucigalpa daily La Tribuna reported that according to several neighbors the attackers were trying to steal Trejo’s motorbike, but Vitalino Alvarez, a spokesperson for the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), told the French wire service AFP that the killers had been “waiting for” Trejo. Some 85 campesinos have been killed in the Aguán since the land dispute intensified in late 2009; two were murdered just two weeks earlier, on Feb. 2 [see Update #1163]. The government of President Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa has militarized Colón department, claiming that this would reduce violence both from the land disputes and from common crime, but many campesinos feel the militarization was actually directed against them. “We don’t understand how we can go on being killed in a department that’s under siege by the army and the police,” Alvarez remarked.

Another campesino, Santos Jacobo Cartagena, was gunned down a few hours before Trejo on the afternoon of Feb. 16. Unidentified men riding in a car shot Cartagena, a MUCA member, as he was waiting for a bus at the La Confianza community. “More murders can be expected after the persecution and threats against the campesinos who struggle for land,” the Permanent Human Rights Monitoring Center for the Aguán, a Honduran human rights group, wrote on Feb. 16. (Vos el Soberano 2/16/13; La Tribuna 2/17/13; AFP 2/17/13 via Terra.com; Conexihon.info (Honduras) 2/17/13)

*3. Mexico: Finnish Maquila Signs With Company Union
IndustriALL Global Union, a European industrial union federation founded in Copenhagen on June 19, 2012, is calling for “mobilizations, awareness-raising activities, and letter writing” Feb. 18-24 to protest labor violations in Mexico, with a special focus on the Finnish-based auto parts multinational PKC Group. In December the company’s Mexican subsidiary, Arneses y Accesorios de México, SA de CV, laid off 122 workers from its three plants in Ciudad Acuña, in Coahuila state near the border with Texas; all the members of a militant union’s local executive committee were among those dismissed, and the rest were thought to be supporters of the local. PKC has since signed a contract with what the laid-off workers describe as a company union.

With more than 5,000 employees, the three PKC plants are among the Acuña area’s most important maquiladoras (tax-exempt assembly plants producing for export). The majority of the workers are women, many of them single mothers; according to the Mexican daily La Jornada, most make 105 pesos (US$8.28) for an eight-hour day (European sources give a higher wage of $55 a week). As in the rest of the maquiladora zone along the US border, plants in the Acuña area are generally non-union; only three of 60 were unionized as of 2012, and those had signed up with affiliates of the conservative Mexican Workers Confederation (CTM).

The National Union of Mine and Metal Workers and the Like of the Mexican Republic (SNTMMSRM, often referred to as “Los Mineros”) has been organizing in this sector for several years. Although like the CTM unions the SNTMMSRM has historically been linked to the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), it is traditionally more militant, and it has fought back with some success against anti-union maneuvers by the center-right governments of former presidents Vicente Fox Quesada (2000-2006) and Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-2012) [see Update #1128]. The maquiladora owners and the local media reacted to the union’s organizing by claiming that if Los Mineros gained a foothold in the zone, the plants would shut down and the workers would be left unemployed.

Despite the campaign against it, the SNTMMSRM managed to form a local, Section 307, and to force a union election last Oct. 18. A CTM affiliate, the National Mining Metalworking Union (SNMM), won with 2,509 votes against 2,311 for Section 307. The SNTMMSRM appealed the results, charging that there were irregularities such as voting by non-employees, but the company proceeded to sign a contract with the CTM affiliate. After the signing, Harri Suutari, the president of the PKC division that handles the Mexican plants, sent a letter in English to the workers. He wrote that they wouldn’t have to pay union dues, according to an article by the Geneva-based International Metalworkers’ Federation (IMF). PKC would pay the dues, Suutari reportedly said, “so that the CTM does not enter the plants and has nothing to do with you. Things will continue as usual; for example, the company will continue to recruit new staff. What will the benefits be? Labor peace and a secure job for many years.”

*4. Haiti: Unionist Is Beaten Up at Gildan Supplier
The Haitian labor organizing group Batay Ouvriye reports that in early February Leo Vedél, a worker at the Premium Apparel assembly plant in Port-au-Prince, was assaulted and then fired when he demanded that he be paid the legal minimum wage for piece work in the assembly sector, 300 gourdes (about US$7.12) for an eight-hour day [see Update #1145]. When management rejected the demand, the majority of the plant’s workers organized a protest. A manager named Gédéon beat Vedél, who had to be treated in a hospital. Premium, owned by Clifford Apaid of the wealthy Apaid family, produces T-shirts for the Montreal-based Gildan Activewear Inc. The Rapid Response Network, established by the Florida-based group One Struggle, is asking for calls to Jason M. Greene, Gildan’s director of supply chain in South Carolina, at 843-606-3750, to demand Vedél’s reinstatement with compensation for lost time and injuries, the firing of Gédéon, and respect for workers’ rights. (Rapid Response Network, accessed 2/17/13)

The incident occurred as a delegation of unionists from Haiti and Honduras was speaking to university and church groups in New York State on conditions in assembly plants producing for Gildan, which supplies the blank T-shirts that companies like Adidas use for sportswear with university logos. Sponsored by the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition, United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) and other pro-labor groups, the delegation sought to motivate students to act in solidarity with assembly plant workers.

“We, as workers, are looking to you, as students, to pressure the brand,” Raquel Navarro, who heads the union at Gildan’s STAR assembly plant in El Progreso, Honduras, told New York University students on Feb. 4. The STAR union is affiliated with the Unitary Federation of Honduran Workers (FUTH), which played an important role in building the resistance to the 2009 military coup that overthrew former president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009).

At a Feb. 6 forum at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, Télémarque Pierre, a coordinator of the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA) in Port-au-Prince [see Update #1128], described the difficulties of unionizing in Haiti’s assembly sector. “Management uses a lot of threats to intimidate workers and keep them from organizing,” he said. Yannick Etienne from Batay Ouvriye stressed the importance of building unions in the plants. “[I]f the workers are not organized, the students can’t do anything,” she noted. “This is a very important component in the equation. The students have to organize not only as consumers, but as citizens of the world. Together, with the students and the workers, we can change an exploitative system.” (Report from Update editor; Labor Notes 2/7/13; The Cornell Daily Sun 2/7/13)

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*1. Honduras: Campesino Leader Charged With “Land Usurpation”
A contingent of some 30 soldiers and police agents arrested Juan Ramón Chinchilla, president of the largest campesino organization in northern Honduras’ Lower Aguán Valley, the evening of Feb. 8 in the central park in Tocoa, Colón department. Police then drove Chinchilla, who heads the Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), 60 km to a court in the city of Trujillo, where he was charged with “usurpation of land.” After a two-hour hearing, the judges released Chinchilla conditionally at about 2 am; he is required to stay in the country and to report to the court every Monday.

The criminal complaint against Chinchilla originated with Exportadora del Atlántico SA, the agricultural division of Grupo Dinant, a food product company founded by the wealthy Miguel Facussé Barjum. The Aguán Valley has been subject to violent struggles between campesinos and large landowners like Facussé since late in 2009, when MUCA and other campesino cooperatives occupied a number of estates they said were on land reserved for small farmers under an agrarian reform program from the 1980s. More than 80 campesinos have died in the land disputes, and Chinchilla himself was captured and beaten by hooded men in January 2011 and held for two days before escaping [see Updates #1063, 1159].

According to MUCA, the court’s decision to release Chinchilla so quickly was the result of solidarity from media groups and from hundreds of campesinos who headed to Trujillo the night of Feb. 8 and threatened to block roads if Chinchilla wasn’t freed. But the case against Chinchilla remains open. MUCA spokespeople say 3,081 campesinos have been arrested in connection with Aguán land disputes in the last two years, while the government of President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has failed to prosecute the region’s landowners and their security guards for violence against campesinos. (Lista Informativa Nicaragua y Más (LINyM) 2/9/13 via Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular (FNRP, Honduras); MUCA communiqué 2/10/13 via Honduras Tierra Libre)

In related news, on the afternoon of Feb. 2 a group of armed men gunned down the campesino Juan Pérez near the El Tigre community, about 3 km from Tocoa, as he was returning home from work. Pérez, the father of nine, was a member of the Campesino Movement for the Recovery of the Aguán (MOCRA). Three hours later Williams Alvarado was murdered in the community of Taojica; he was a MUCA member who worked at the Flor del Aguán cooperative in the Aurora settlement. (MUCA communiqué 2/3/13 via Vos el Soberano (Honduras); Adital (Brazil) 2/4/13)

*2. Colombia: Drummond Contractor Convicted in Unionists' Deaths
On Jan. 25 Colombian judge William Andrés Castiblanco sentenced Jaime Blanco, a former contractor for the Alabama-based Drummond Co. Inc. coal company, to 37 years and 11 months in prison for masterminding the March 2001 murders of two union leaders in the northern department of Cesar. The court found that Blanco, who supplied food services for Drummond’s La Loma mine, had arranged with rightwing paramilitaries, including one known as “Tolemaida,” for the killing of Valmore Locarno and Víctor Hugo Orcasita, leaders of the mine’s union. Blanco’s assistant, Jairo Charris, was convicted in 2009 in the same murder plot and was sentenced to 30 years.

Judge Castiblanco also sent trial records to Colombian prosecutors so that they could investigate other people possibly connected to the crimes: Drummond’s president, Garry Drummond; two company directors, Augusto Valencia and Jean Adkins; Alfredo Araújo Castro, Drummond’s public relations director for Cesar; and former Colombian legislator Jorge Castro Pacheco, who was convicted in 2010 of maintaining ties to paramilitary organizations. In addition, the judge supported a request by the victims’ relatives to ask the Supreme Court to investigate former assistant prosecutor Edgardo Maya for allegedly failing to act to protect unionists in Cesar; Maya is Jaime Blanco’s half-brother.

Drummond management has long been suspected of involvement of the murders of Locarno and Orcasita and of another La Loma unionist, Gustavo Soler, who was killed later in 2001. The US-based International Labor Rights Fund (ILRF) and the United Steelworkers (USW) union filed a civil suit against Drummond in March 2002 under the 1789 Alien Tort Statute in federal court in Birmingham, Alabama, where the company is based. The Birmingham jury found the company not liable in 2007, but ILRF executive director Terry Collingsworth announced plans to appeal [see Update #911]. In an April 2011 interview Blanco told the Associated Press wire service that Drummond senior managers ordered the murders of Locarno and Orcasita and that if he was convicted, they would be able to “wash their hands” of the case. (El Tiempo (Bogotá) 2/5/13; Miami Herald 2/6/13 from AP)

In other news the Colombian Environment Ministry has indefinitely suspended Drummond’s permission to load coal on ships at its port near Santa Marta in the northern department of Magdalena; the suspension came after the company dumped at least 500 metric tons of coal into the Caribbean in January to keep a barge from sinking in bad weather. The ministry indicated that Drummond, the second largest exporter of Colombian coal, needs to develop a better contingency plan before it is allowed to resume operations. Meanwhile, production stopped at the largest exporter of Colombian coal--Cerrejón, a joint venture between BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Xstrata--on Feb. 7 when workers went on their first strike in two decades. The Cerrejón Workers Union (Sintracarbón) called the walkout over wage and benefit issues. (MH 2/6/13 from AP; Reuters 2/8/13)

*3. Dominican Republic: Barrick Mining Contract Is Challenged
The Justice and Transparency Foundation (FJT), a Dominican civil organization, has filed for an injunction against a contract the government signed with the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation for the Pueblo Viejo gold mine in Cotuí in the Dominican Republic’s central province of Sánchez Ramírez. The mine, a joint venture of Barrick and the Vancouver-based multinational Goldcorp Inc., opened last August despite strong opposition from environmental groups [see Update #1139], It is set to begin exporting gold in February.

According to the FJT, the company expects to make $2 billion from the gold it exports this year, while the Dominican government will only receive $53 million. Over the next 25 years Barrick Gold will get back something like $50 billion on its $3.7 billion initial investment, FJT president Trajano Potentini said on Feb. 4. The country will receive just $1.3 billion, while it will have the sole responsibility for dealing with the mine’s damage to the environment. Potentini called legislators who approved the contract “traitors to the country.” In addition to the legal filing, the foundation was planning a national day of consciousness-raising around the issue. (Hoy (Santo Domingo) 2/4/13; Adital (Brazil) 2/8/13)

*4. Haiti: Duvalier Told to Appear in Rights Abuse Case
The effort to bring former Haitian “president for life” Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier (1971-1986) to trial for human rights abuses inched forward on Feb. 7 when an appeals court panel in Port-au-Prince heard from lawyers representing people who say they were victims of his regime. Duvalier had failed to appear at an earlier hearing, scheduled for Jan. 31, and he refused to attend the new hearing, which fell on the 27th anniversary of his 1986 overthrow. Defense lawyers read the judges a letter from Duvalier saying that Feb. 7 should be “a day of national reconciliation” and complaining about “abominable acts” that he said were committed against his supporters after his ouster—apparently a reference to the lynching of some members of the notorious Tonton Macoute paramilitary group.

The plaintiffs first brought charges against Duvalier when he returned to Haiti in January 2011 after a 25-year exile in France, but the investigative judge in the case, Carvès Jean, ruled in January 2012 that while Duvalier should stand trial for allegations of corruption, the statute of limitations had run out for the human rights violations [see Update #1159]. International rights groups have protested this decision. “International human rights standards are very clear in cases such as this,” Javier Zúñiga, a special adviser at Amnesty International (AI) said in a Feb. 6 press release. “Crimes including torture, executions, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances are not subject to a statute of limitations and the alleged perpetrators cannot benefit from pardons or amnesties.”

As Duvalier supporters and opponents demonstrated outside, the two legal teams clashed in the courtroom. Duvalier’s group interrupted the plaintiffs’ lawyers, charging that they had no standing in the case since they allegedly had failed to follow proper procedures. After a brief recess, the judges finally heard from the plaintiffs’ lawyers, who demanded that the court require Duvalier to appear for another hearing or face arrest. Appeals court judge Jean Joseph Lebrun scheduled a new hearing for Feb. 21, again calling for Duvalier to appear in person. (AI press release 2/6/13; AlterPresse (Haiti) 2/7/13, 2/8/13)

Meanwhile, the courts’ investigation of the April 2000 murder of journalist Jean Léopold Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint, the guard at Dominique’s Haïti Inter radio station, is continuing [see Update #777]. Investigative judge Yvickel D. Dabresil issued a letter asking Mirlande Libérus, a former senator for the Lavalas Family (FL) party of ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide (1991-1996, 2001-2004), to appear in the appeals court “on the Friday that falls on Feb. 6, 2013.” Libérus’ lawyer, human rights attorney Mario Joseph, argued that since Feb. 6, 2013 fell on a Wednesday, the former senator, who now lives in the US, didn’t know when to appear; Joseph requested a new date from the judge, who has been in charge of the long-delayed investigation since Apr. 3, 2005. (AlterPresse 2/6/13)

*5. Mexico: US Agents Shot Youth in Back, Autopsy Confirms
José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, a 16-year-old Mexican shot dead by US Border Patrol agents at the Mexico-US border near Nogales, Arizona, the night of Oct. 10, 2012 [see World War Report 10/14/12], was hit by at least eight bullets and maybe as many as 11, according to an autopsy report made available to reporters on Feb. 7. The report, prepared by doctors for the Sonora State Attorney General’s Office, found that at least seven of the bullets hit the unarmed teenager in the back. The shooting came a week after an Oct. 2 incident in which a Border Patrol agent was shot dead by other agents in the dark near the border in Cochise County, Arizona [see World War Report 10/10/12].

The Border Patrol agents initially claimed that Rodríguez had been on the border fence and had thrown stones at them. They said they fired in self-defense. “No, the youth was definitely not on the wall when he received the impacts,” Luis Parra, the family’s lawyer, told reporters. “The youth was on a sidewalk on the Mexican side.” The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which is in charge of investigating Border Patrol shooting, has remained silent on the case. FBI spokesperson Jennifer Giannola wouldn’t tell a reporter for the Associated Press wire service when the investigation would be completed. “Although we are cognizant of time, it is imperative to conduct a thorough investigation,” she wrote in an email.

In October Mexico’s Foreign Relations Secretariat (SRE) called the killing a “serious bilateral problem,” but it is unclear what the Mexican government has done in response to the killing of an unarmed Mexican minor in Mexico by US agents. (AP 2/7/13 via Huffington Post; Univision 2/8/13)

NOTE: Update co-editor Jane Guskin is leading a dialogue on immigration at the James Connolly Forum in Troy, NY, on Friday, Feb. 15. The event starts at 7 pm at the Oakwood Community Center on 313 Tenth Street; for more information, call 518-505-0948. Facebook event signup: http://www.facebook.com/events/443029469086163/

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*1. Mexico: At Least 37 Dead in Pemex Explosion
As of Feb. 2 rescue workers had found the bodies of 34 people killed in an explosion the afternoon of Jan. 31 at the Mexico City headquarters of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), the giant state-owned oil monopoly, according to government officials. At least 101 other people were injured in the massive blast, which damaged part of the B2 administrative building, next to the company’s main building, a 52-story tower that dominates the city’s skyline. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto declared three days of national mourning, which coincided with a long holiday weekend; the Constitution Day holiday falls on the first Monday of February.

Mexican officials insisted that there would be a thorough investigation of the explosion’s causes, but two days after the disaster the government had still offered no explanation. Initial reports pointed to an electrical problem as the cause. At about the time of the blast, the company wrote on its Twitter account, @Pemex, that “[a]s a cautionary measure” it was “evacuating the Pemex tower in the DF [Federal District] because of a failure in the electric energy supply.” However, there seemed to be no evidence of an electrical fire. An electrical problem could cause an explosion if there was a gas leak, but Mario Galicia, an engineer in the petroleum industry, told the Mexican daily La Jornada that he knew of no gas ducts or substations in the area. Galicia suggested that there were signs of “something premeditated.” The National Energy Studies Committee (CNEE) and the National Union of Petroleum Technicians and Professionals ((UNTyPP) called for speed and transparency in the investigation, since delays would lead to “more suspicion and speculation.” (Terra.com (Mexico) 1/31/13; La Jornada 2/3/13, 2/3/13, 2/3/13)

The explosion comes in the midst of a debate over plans to open up Pemex to expanded contracting with foreign corporations through President Peña’s “Pact for Mexico” program, which was signed on to by the major right, center and center-left parties. Opponents say this will lead to privatizing the company, which was created when President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río nationalized the country’s oilfields in 1938. Manuel Bartlett of Puebla state, the leader of the small leftist Labor Party (PT) bench in the Mexican Senate, warned the Peña administration against trying to use the explosion in a campaign against Pemex, “in which they repeat that it’s inefficient, that it doesn’t work, and that we need for people to come in from outside to save it.” (LJ 2/3/13)

The Jan. 31 explosion is the latest in a long line of disasters for the company: a fire at a gas pipeline distribution center near Reynosa, Tamaulipas last September in which 26 people died; a July 2011 fire in a refinery in Miguel Hidalgo de Tula, Hidalgo, that killed three people; a December 2010 explosion at a pipeline in San Martín Texmelucan, Puebla, that killed 29 people; and an explosion of gasoline fumes in a sewer system that devastated an entire neighborhood in Guadalajara, Jalisco, on Apr. 22, 1992, with at least 210 deaths. Pemex has never adequately accounted for these events. (CNN (Mexico) 1/31/13) There have also been two attacks on Pemex gas pipelines by leftist rebels, both carried out in July 2007 by the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR); no injuries were reported [see Update #946].

Update, Feb. 4: The explosion was caused by an accumulation of gas in the Pemex administrative building’s basement, federal attorney general Jesús Murillo Karam told a press conference on Feb. 4. He said the blast occurred while four workers were doing maintenance in the area. As of Feb. 4 the number of dead had risen to 37. (CNN Expansión 2/4/13)

*2. Mexico: Supreme Court Rules Against Electrical Workers
Thousands of laid-off Mexico City electrical workers suffered a major setback on Jan. 30 when a panel of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) overturned a lower court decision supporting the workers’ claim to jobs at the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE). Lawyers for the workers’ union, the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SME), had argued that the workers were entitled to replacement jobs at the CFE because the decision by former president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (2006-2012) in October 2009 to close down their employer--the Central Light and Power Company (LFC), which serviced the Mexico City metropolitan area—was unjustified. The federal government owned LFC before its closing, and the government continues to own and operate the CFE.

The SCJN panel ruled that since LFC was losing money, Calderón’s decision was due to circumstances beyond his control (“por causa de fuerza mayor”), and that in any case the president didn’t have the power to transfer employees from one company to the other--even though both LFC and CFE were state enterprises, the justices ruled, they were independent entities with their own management. The decision appears to invalidate an agreement Calderón made with the SME in September 2011 to have the CFE hire its members [see Update #1097]. However, the panel ruled that the workers were entitled to a severance package.

Calderón’s abrupt closing of LFC in 2009 was widely seen as an effort to shut down a militant union by laying off its active 44,000 members [see Update #1007]. The SME responded with a dual strategy, pursuing legal arguments in the courts and mounting militant demonstrations in the streets. The majority of the laid-off workers accepted the government’s offer of a severance package, but about 17,000 held out for new jobs. A six-month sit-in by unionists in Mexico City’s main plaza, the Zócalo, resulted in Calderón’s September 2011 agreement to have the CFE rehire the workers. It is unclear what the union’s next move will be. (Miami Herald 1/30/13 from AP; La Jornada (Mexico) 1/31/13)

*3. Argentina: Barrick Mines Are No Threat to Glaciers?
The government of the western Argentine province of San Juan released a report the week of Jan. 28 finding that two controversial mines owned by the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation have no “potential or actual environmental impact on glaciers or peri-glaciers in the areas” surrounding them. The Argentine branch of the environmental group Greenpeace had charged in July 2011 that Barrick’s Pascua Lama and Veladero mines were damaging three small glaciers, in violation of a 2010 federal law meant to protect Andean glaciers. Barrick challenged the law, but the Argentine Supreme Court of Justice made a July 2012 ruling that left the law in effect for the time being [see Updates #1089, 1137].

The Veladero mine is in San Juan province, and the massive Pascua Lama mine, not yet opened, extends from San Juan province into Chile’s Huasco province. The provincial government has joined Barrick’s challenge to the law, claiming that provinces have jurisdiction over environmental issues. “We are going to continue complying with the law, but always defending our rights,” San Juan Gov. José Luis Gioja said when the report was released.

Argentine environmentalists dismissed the report. “[W]hat’s happening in San Juan is surreal,” said Enrique Viale, president of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers (AAdeAA). “The person in charge of the ‘auditing,’ the current director of the provincial department of hydraulics, Jorge Millón, was a Barrick employee when he produced the environmental impact report that he later approved from the other side of the counter as a public official. Now, once again as an official, he’s the one directing an ‘audit’ of his former employers.” (Dow Jones 1/30/13 via Fox Business; Palermonline Noticias (Buenos Aires) 1/30/13)

*4. Honduras: Center-Left Candidate Edges Ahead in First Poll
The first opinion poll relating to this year’s Nov. 10 general elections in Honduras, released on Jan. 29, showed Xiomara Castro, the presidential candidate of the newly formed center-left Freedom and Refoundation Party (LIBRE), slightly ahead with 25% of voter preferences. She was followed by National Congress president Juan Orlando Hernández, the candidate of the rightwing governing National Party (PN), with 23% and Mauricio Villeda of the center-right Liberal Party (PL) with 16%. The sampling was carried out by the Cid Gallup firm Jan. 14-18 based on responses from 1,256 likely voters; it was published by the San Pedro Sula daily La Prensa.

The poll shows a striking change in the country’s political scene, which was dominated by the PN and the LP until June 2009, when a military coup overthrew then-president José Manuel (“Mel”) Zelaya Rosales (2006-2009). LIBRE was formed by the grassroots National Popular Resistance Front (FNRP) coalition in late June 2011 and has never fielded candidates before, while Castro is relatively new to politics and is best known as the wife of former president Zelaya. “LIBRE has given a real surprise to the country” in the 19 months since it was formed, Zelaya, who heads the party, told La Prensa after the poll results were released. “I see great possibilities for it to assume power in the coming elections.”

Other political analysts feel the PN remains the strongest party. The margin of error in the poll, given as two percentage points, means that Castro and Hernández are in a statistical tie, and the PN’s level of support in the poll is 33%, well ahead of LIBRE’s 21%. These analysts also feel that controlling Congress is more important than holding the presidency; last month the legislators gave themselves the power to impeach the president. But the traditional parties are clearly weakened. The LP was hurt by its poor performance in the chaotic months after the coup, while the PN is suffering from internal fights and the widespread dissatisfaction with current president Porfirio (“Pepe”) Lobo Sosa, a PN leader. Hondurans now rank him as the worst president in the country’s history, according to the poll. (Reuters 1/29/13; La Prensa 1/30/13; Honduras Culture and Politics 1/31/13)

*5. Guatemala: Campaign Starts for Evicted Campesinos
Guatemalan civil organizations held a protest in Guatemala City on Jan. 29 as the opening of an international campaign to demand that the government of President Otto Pérez Molina provide land for 769 indigenous campesino families that were expelled from their fields in the Polochic Valley in the northeastern Guatemalan department of Alta Verapaz in March 2011 [see Update #1093]. The campaign—led by Intermón Oxfam, a Spanish group affiliated with the relief organization Oxfam International—is being carried out in Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Spain.

The organizers say Pérez Molina has made a promise to give land to the families, members of the Q’eqchi’ Maya group, but has failed to fulfill it. Guatemalan activist and 1992 Nobel peace prize winner Rigoberta Menchú Tum is one of the campaign’s supporters. “The land problem goes on being the main cause of poverty, of hunger and of injustices in Guatemala,” she said on Jan. 29. (Adital (Brazil) 1/28/13; Prensa Libre (Guatemala) 1/29/13)

NOTE: Update co-editor Jane Guskin is leading a dialogue on immigration at the James Connolly Forum in Troy, NY, on Friday, Feb. 15. The event starts at 7 pm at the Oakwood Community Center on 313 Tenth Street; for more information, call 518-505-0948.

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About the Update

ISSN#: 1084 922X. Weekly News Update on the Americas covers news from Latin America and the Caribbean, compiled and written from a progressive perspective. It was published weekly by the Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York from 1990 to 2015. It continues to carry occasional postings. For a subscription, write to weeklynewsupdate@gmail.com.
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